Bert is really, really cute, though. Those sly black-rimmed eyes get me every time!

Rene

Deja Pseu quoted this in the last thread, but it bears repeating: “when you find you’re choosing what the patriarchy is pushing, it’s a good thing to sometimes stop and ask yourself why.”

I spent too much time today trying to create an 18th-century man’s costume from charity shop odds and ends, and I’m totally blaming the patriarchy for that crap.

But really, aren’t all those fuckers in thrall to the military? Aren’t they, in fact, precisely what the military wants? You aren’t going to find too many fine, upstanding, sensitive, hearty American youths who are willing to commit the necessary atrocities.

The whole Abu gang should be in prison, if you ask me, starting with Bush and Rumsfeld. And what the hell, throw in the Svengaliest of’em all, Karl Rove.

There’s nothing wrong with a little grim satisfaction in my book. Although, as I discovered in a recent post expressing same with regard to the beheaded Saudi rapists, some people don’t like hearing about it.

And I speak from experience when I say it is completely possible to be a feminist and hate people in general. I wouldn’t know about being a good feminist, though. I think one of the prerequisites of goodness is, you have to not hate people.

And as much as today’s glossy, skanky neo-feminists love to ignore it, this is a real issue. As a man, I can just not care about clothes and more or less get away with it. I’m a “technology professional” so people expect me to look like a “dork” anyway, and it’s completely possible to shop only at Target and still look employable, if not totally great. But I suspect that the long-term socioeconomic consequences are rather severe for women who choose not to play dress-up. It depends somewhat on your profession, I suppose. I guess a female truck driver can wear sweats to work every day. On the other hand, places like sales and upper management are heavily oriented toward appearance (specifically, the appearance of being a highly-disciplined-yet-still-nasty sexbot). I don’t know how far you’d get in that world without towing the line. And most workplaces are probably somewhere between. IT is a great example of a double-standard in this regard. There is no female equivalent of the bearded Unix hippie who is excused from wearing deodorant because he’s such an awesome shell programmer. If you see an unshaven, stinky woman in your office, you call security.

Anyway, I’d also like to express strong agreement with the statement that patriarchal ideology sucks the bag. And I wish I’d said that, too. *sigh*